A Narratological Investigation of Ovid's Medea: Met. 7.1-424

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Classical World, Volume 109, Number 1, Fall 2015, pp. 69-89 (Article)

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Classical World, vol. 109, no. 1 (2015) Pp.6989

A Narratological Investigationof Ovids Medea: Met.7.1424*

DANIEL Libatique

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I apply the methodology of narratolog-ical focalization to Ovids account of Medea in the Metamorpho-

ses (7.1424), an episode that many scholars have acknowledgedas marked by jarring shifts. Focalization allows the reader to tracemore subtly and appreciate more fully the step-by-step progressionin Medeas character, as the audiences sympathy is gradually alien-ated from the young girl in love by means of shifting focalizations.I also investigate the neglected Liber vignette (7.294296) as animportant signpost for the murder of Pelias, rather than a retrospec-tive close to the Aeson episode.

I. Introduction

The Medea of book 7 of Ovids Metamorphoses undergoes three dis-

tinct journeys. The first two, geographic and thematic, are easy to glean

from the text, and several scholars have adequately remarked upon their

stages and delineations.1Geographically, Medea begins in Colchis, trav-

els to Thessaly with Jason, flees to Corinth, flies all over the Aegean,ends up in Athens, and finally disappears thence from Ovids text. The

geographic ties into the thematic; commentators and scholars have noted

a tripartite evolution of Medea, from young girl in love with Jason, to

* This paper was first delivered at the 2013 Pacific Rim Roman Literature Seminarat Columbia University. I thank the organizers and participants of that conference for theirsuggestions; CWs editors and anonymous referees for their comments; and James Uden,

Pat Johnson, and the Department of Classical Studies at Boston University for their guid-ance and patience as this paper took shape.1 See W. Anderson, Ovids Metamorphoses: Books 610(Norman 1972) 24389;

F. Bmer, P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen: Kommentar, Buch VIVII(Heidelberg 1976)196306.


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benevolent witch who rejuvenates Jasons father Aeson, to malevolent

sorceress who plays a trick on the Peliades and murders their father

Pelias.

2

Various parts of that geographic and thematic journey acted asthe focus of other literary works: Euripides tragedy Medea, Apollonius

Rhodius epicArgonautica, even Ovids own lost tragedy Medea.3The

shifts between thematic divisions in this particular account, however,

are often noted as abrupt and, at times, unmotivated; for example, Car-

ole Newlands writes, Ovid passes abruptly from a sympathetic por-

trayal of Medea as lovesick maiden to a tragicomic account of her career

as accomplishedpharmaceutria (witch) and murderess. The Medea of

Metamorphoses 7 is not a coherent, rounded character.4However, we

can, in fact, see coherence if we utilize a new method of approach inorder to trace more subtly and appreciate more fully the progression of

Medeas character.

For that purpose, I propose a third kind of journey: a narratological

one. I argue that Ovid uses a complex narratological technique to dis-

tance Medea progressively from the audience in terms of perspective and

emotion; in so doing, he depicts a journey that starts subjectively with a

young girl in love and culminates in an impersonal mythological abstrac-

tion. I intend in this paper to use the narratological lens of focalization

2 Existing analyses of the Medea episode proper, defined here as Met.7.1349, tendto split it into three major thematic parts. In his schema, B. Otis (Ovid as an Epic Poet[Cambridge 1966] 168) divides it thus: first, Medea, and then two episodes subsumedunder the heading of Human miracles: Aeson and the Daughters of Pelias. Thesubtitles in Andersons commentary (above, n.1) 243280 keep Medea well within thereaders view: Medea and Jason, Medea and Aeson, and Medea and Pelias. Bmer(above, n.1) 196306 delineates under the general episode heading Medea threegeographically termed parts: first, Iason in Colchis, and then under the subheadingMedea in Hellas two parts, Aeson and Pelias. Otis omits the three-line treatmentof Bacchus and his nurses at 7.294296, Anderson does not investigate it too deeply,and Bmer subsumes it into the Aeson; nevertheless, the section is an important sign-post, as I will later demonstrate. I leave aside the collection of Medeas wanderings afterthe murder of Pelias in 7.350403, a sharp break in narrative continuity, as C. Segal(Black and White Magic in Ovids Metamorphoses: Passion, Love, and Art, ArionThird Series 9.3 [2002] 18) calls it, and the 20-line treatment in 7.40424 of Medeasinteraction with Theseus, in which the origin of aconite takes up more space than thenarrative proper. I will investigate the near-effacement of Medea in these episodes later.

3

If one believes the lost Medeato have been composed before the Metamorphoses,a likely possibility.4 C. Newlands, The Metamorphosis of Ovids Medea, in J. Clauss and S. Johnston,

eds., Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art(Princeton 1996)17879.


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Libatique | A Narratological Investigation of Ovids Medea 71

as coined by Grard Genette,5refined by Mieke Bal6and Don Fowler,7

and utilized by Philip Peek8with specific reference to the Metamorpho-

ses.Such a method of analysis will reveal a different sort of structureto the episode than that already posited by previous scholarship. I will

first define my terminology and then bring focalization to bear on select

passages, especially the vignette of Liber and his nurses, an episode to

which few commentaries and scholars pay much attention.

Using this methodology, I propose a narratological structure for

the Medea episode that runs concurrently with the thematic structure.

Broadly, focalization undergoes four major shifts in this section of Meta-

morphoses7 and creates five sections. The first section (7178) focal-

izes through Medea; the second section (179293) focalizes throughthe model author; the third (294296), very briefly, through Liber; the

fourth (297349) through the model author, the Peliades, and Pelias;

and the fifth (350424) through the model author alone. Although there

are interjections of other focalizers throughout each section, for the most

part each section is presented through the point of view of the focalizers

indicated above. These shifting narrative voices progressively distance

Medea from the audience by alienating them from her perspective, feel-

ings, and ideas; as such, these shifts enable the reader to anticipate bet-ter the climax of horror in the Pelias episode and show the journey of

Medea from tragic figure to mythological abstraction and force of evil.

II. Focalization as Methodology

Focalization is concerned with the perspective from which the story

is being narrated and viewed. At any given point in the text, one of

three entities narrates the story and views the action, resulting in threekinds of text: (1) simple narrator-text, in which the entity that Peek

calls the model author (or narrator) both narrates and views; (2)

character-text, wherein a character within the story narrates and views;

and (3) complex narrator-text or embedded focalization, by which

5 G. Genette, Figures IIII(Paris 19661972).6

M. Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, 2nd. edition (Toronto1997) 14261.7 D. Fowler, Deviant Focalization in VergilsAeneid, PCPhS36 (1990).8 P. Peek, Procne, Philomela, Tereus in Ovids Metamorphoses: A Narratological

Approach,Antichthon37 (2003).


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72 Classical World

the model author verbalizes a characters inner state or perspective

through indirect discourse or descriptionthat is to say, the model au-

thor narrates but the character views.

9

Focalization means that a cer-tain entity is viewing the action, whether described in his or her own

words or those of the model author; focalization through Medea, for

example, can be expressed either through character-text, if she speaks

in the narrative, or through complex narrator-text, if the model author

narrates her inner feelings.

Here, a distinction must be drawn between simple narrator-text that

focuses on a character and complex narrator-text that depicts a scene

througha characters eyes. The key difference lies in the viewer of the ac-

tion: the model author for the former, the character for the latter. Whilethe latter often includes such markers as verbs of seeing (like uidereor

spectare) that signpost a characters perspective, the former offers the

model authors take on the scene, not the characters. This slippage be-

tween narrator and subject of narration makes simple narrator-text dif-

ficult to distinguish from complex narrator-text, but without a clear or

unmistakable identification of the character as the viewer of the action

while the model author narrates the characters inner emotions, there

cannot be complex narrator-text.We can see these voices at work in the first lines of book 7. Book 6

ends with the birth of two of the Argonauts, Calais and Zetes, and the

disembarking of the Argo for the golden fleece (Met. 6.711721). The

first six lines of book 7 of the Metamorphoses, then, connect the events

to come with those just mentioned:

iamque fretum Minyae Pagasaea puppe secabant,perpetuaque trahens inopem sub nocte senectam

Phineus uisus erat, iuvenesque Aquilone creatiuirgineas uolucres miseri senis ore fugarant,multaque perpessi claro sub Iasone tandemcontigerant rapidas limosi Phasidos undas.

(7.16)10

9 Peek (above, n.8) 36. The latter two, character-text and complex narrator-text,might be construed respectively as direct speech and indirect speech, but I adhere to Peeks

assertion that those terms are insufficient to embody the concepts of both speaking andviewing.10 The text used throughout is R. Tarrants 2004 OCT. This and all following trans-

lations are mine. All line citations from this point on refer to book 7 of Ovids Metamor-phosesunless otherwise stated.


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And now the Argonauts were cutting a path through the sea withtheir Pagasaean ship, and they had seen Phineus, dragging out hisneedy old age in eternal darkness, and the sons of Aquilo had ban-

ished the maiden birds from the face of the miserable old man, andhaving endured many calamities, they, under the direction of distin-guished Jason, at last had lit upon the rushing waters of the muddyPhasis.

Books 6 and 7 are joined seamlessly by the Boreads, participants in the

sea voyage and effectors of Phineus salvation. The connective iamque

and continual motion of the imperfect secabant also serve to bridge

linguistically the gap between the books. For all intents and purposes,

these lines are at first glance straight narrator-text. There are no di-rect speeches or ostensible descriptions of a characters inner state.

The model author seems simply to narrate the sailing of the Argonauts

looking backward in time; they had seen Phineus (uisus erat, 3), driven

off the Harpies (fugarant, 4), and reached the waters of the Phasis

(contigerant, 6), all portrayed as accomplished action by means of the

pluperfect tense.

Upon closer inspection, however, some words in the section creep

into the realm of value judgment, which in turn leads to the question ofwho is making the judgment. For example, from whose perspective is

the night unending (perpetua, 2) and Phineus old age needy (inopem,

2)? The model author continues to describe Phineus as wretched

(miseri,4), another value judgment, and Jason is described as distin-

guished (claro, 5). All signs point to complex narrator-text through

theArgonauts eyes: they see the old mans needy state (inopem), com-

pounded by the incessant nature of his suffering (perpetua), and want

to help release him from his wretchedness (miseri), all in the service oftheir distinguished leader (claro). The main verb uisus eratindicates a

specific point of view from which the story is being told; while there is

no explicit agent, we can safely assume that it is the Argonauts. Focal-

ization thus can either expand outward to encompass entire sentences

and vignettes11or focus in on specific words and their connotative res-

onances within the character whose perspective they portray. With this

concept in mind, we turn now to the Medea narrative proper and begin

with an illustration of Medea as primary focalizer for the first part of

the narrative.

11 Medea clearly focalizes the entire character-text, or direct speech, of 1171.


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III. Medea as Focalizer: 7.7178

The character-text and especially the complex narrator-text throughout

this initial section (7178) afford the audience both an intimate view

into Medeas innermost thoughts and a deliberate alignment with her

point of view as she experiences various emotions relating to her inner

conflict and Jasons dangers. Ovid uses this technique of alignment to

evoke sympathy in the audience and set up the devastating decline that

Medea will undergo after being removed from Colchis. The audience

would want a sympathetic young girl to succeed in her quest to achieve

her objective, namely to protect and aid her beloved; when her objective

shifts to murder for the sake of murder with Pelias, the audience willbe forced to question simultaneously the source of Medeas transforma-

tion and, in light of it, their own sympathy. They must ask what violent

forces, whether internal or external, have caused the sympathetic young

girl to try her hand at pure evil. They may come prepared with some

answers, due to the literary baggage with which Medea comes to Meta-

morphoses 7, but the structure of Ovids narrative precludes many of

them: in the Metamorphoses, Medeas love and the actions that it causes

her to perform are not spurred by the divine agents of ApolloniusAr-gonautica; Jasons betrayal, the most powerful motivator of Euripides

Medea,mythologically postdates the events of the first three parts of

Ovids narrative. The audience is forced to view Medea through fresh

eyes and restructure their expectations of the myth because of these dif-

fering details and these shifting narratological voices.

Medeas journey begins after the bridge between books 6 and 7.

After two lines of narrator-text (78) on the journey of the Argonauts

and their arrival in Aetess court, the model author reveals a Medeaplagued by pernicious love: concipit interea ualidos Aeetias ignes / et

luctata diu, postquam ratione furorem / uincere non poterat (Mean-

while, the daughter of Aeetes caught fire powerfully and wrestled for

a long time and, after she could not overcome her frenzy with reason,

[said] . . . 911). Here, in the absence of a reference to Medea as a

viewer, the passage must be simple narrator-text; it has to be the model

author who is portraying Medea in the way that hesees her: a maiden

battling against powerful love (ualidos . . . ignes, 9), wrestling for a

long time (luctata diu, 10), and losing her fight against frenzy (rati-

one furorem / uincere non poterat, 1011). The model author creates a


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thoroughly sympathetic portrait of Medea as she languishes in love for

Jason by explaining her state in his own words.

After this brief narrator-text, however, the model author builds uponthis sympathy by next affording Medea a voice with which to express her

innermost thoughts in the character-text of 1171. She lucidly expresses

her conflict with vocabulary and syntax to match, most strikingly at 19

21: aliudque cupido, / mens aliud suadet; uideo meliora proboque, /

deteriora sequor (And my desire advises one thing, but my mind advises

another; I see and approve of the better [path, but] I follow the worse).

Two successive instances of an enjambed adversative asyndeton set up

the two dilemmas that engender the decision that Medea must make:

desire (cupido) versus reason (mens), the path of paternal obedience(meliora) versus the path of submission to her own desire (deteriora). In

addition, both sentences are balanced by chiastic structures: object-sub-

ject-subject-object in aliud cupidomens aliud, verb-object-object verb

in uideo melioradeteriora sequor. The speech is deliberately crafted

and constructed so as to illustrate the constant vacillation between ex-

tremes that will end in Medeas decision to obey her father and banish

her love for Jason: effuge crimen!Escape the charge! (71). The impact

of the character-text and focalization through Medea puts the audiencein her position and evokes the audiences sympathy as they gain access

to her inner struggles and her warring thoughts. These are the mental

processes of a young girl in love, one whom the audience would want to

recover and regain control over her emotional state. That desire stems

directly from this opening foray of sympathy-evocation, where the young

girl not only gives voice to her wretched state but also communicates

directly with her audience.

After the monologue, the encounter of Medea and Jason at Hec-ates altars (7494) contains a powerful and unmistakable instance of

complex narrator-text that aligns Medeas point of view (rather than the

model authors) with that of the audience through the model authors

description. The model author builds a connection between the audience

and Medea by depicting the scene from her perspective and concomitant

emotional state as she sets eyes on Jason:

et iam fortis erat pulsusque resederat ardor,

cum uidet Aesoniden extinctaque flamma reluxit.erubuere genae totoque recanduit ore,utque solet uentis alimenta adsumere quaeque


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parua sub inducta latuit scintilla fauillacrescere et in ueteres agitata resurgere uires,sic iam lenis amor, iam quem languere putares,

ut uidit iuuenem, specie praesentis inarsit.et casu solito formosior Aesone natusilla luce fuit; posses ignoscere amanti.spectat et in uultu ueluti tum denique uisolumina fixa tenet nec se mortalia demensora uidere putat nec se declinat ab illo.

(7688)

And now she was strong and her passion, beaten away, had abated,when she sees the son of Aeson, and the flame that had been snuffedout now rekindled. Her cheeks blushed, and her whole face was in-flamed, and just as a tiny spark is wont to taking nourishment from thewind, a flame which, hidden under ash strewn on top of it, is wont togrow and regain its previous strength once stirred, so her love, whichjust now was gentle, which just now you could think was growingweak, burned as she saw the youth, at the sight of him present. Andthe son of Aeson in that light was even more beautiful than usuallychanced to happen; you could pardon the girl in her infatuation. Shewatches and keeps her eyes fixed on his face, as though she saw him

just then [for the first time], nor does she in her madness think she seesa mortal face, yet she does not turn herself away from him.

The model author describes what physiologically happens to Medea

upon the sight of Jason (uidet77): there is fire imagery throughout the

narrative (extincta flamma reluxit 77; recanduit 78; the simile of a spark

surging into flame 7981; and inarsit 83), which recalls the reference

to powerful fires (ualidos ignes 9) before the monologue in which she

decides to banish her desire for Jason. The physical sight of him has un-done her resolve and brought her back to where she began. Even though

the model author exploits his direct relationship to the audience in the

second-person addresses ofputares(82) andposses(85), the passage as

a whole is complex narrator-text focalized through Medea. The model

author highlights the processes of her mind: in uultu ueluti tum denique

uiso / lumina fixa tenet (She keeps her eyes planted on his face, as

though she finally saw him at that time, 8687); he describes what is

seen through her eyes: nec se mortalia demens / ora uidere putat(nor

does she in her madness think she sees a mortal face, 8788). The

repetition and polyptoton of uidere and the use of synonyms highlight

the fact that it is Medeas perspective from which the story is being told,


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that it is Medea who is viewing the narratives action: uidet 77; uidit

83; spectat and uiso,86; uidere88. Newlands perhaps best sums up the

monologue and the following encounter of Jason and Medea at Hecatesaltars: In its omission of divine agencies and its subjective focusing

upon the heroine, the first half of the Medea narrative provides a psycho-

logical study of how human passion involves contradictory emotions and

voluntary self-deception.12That subjective focusing not only upon

but also through Medea allows us to build a level of sympathy for the

lovelorn young girl, as we see the scene through her eyes and hear de-

scribed what is happening to her.

The evocation of sympathy with Medea by means of complex nar-

rator-text continues into Ovids account of Jasons three trials. As Jasonand the spectators lay eyes upon the terrigenae for the first time, the

model author gives Medea a cutaway from the action, as it were:

demisere metu uultumque animumque Pelasgi.ipsa quoque extimuit quae tutum fecerat illum,utque peti uidit iuuenem tot ab hostibus unum,palluit et subito sine sanguine frigida sedit;neue parum ualeant a se data gramina, carmen

auxiliare canit secretasque advocat artes.(133138)

The Pelasgians cast down their faces and spirits in fear. But she whohad made him safe was terrified. And as she saw the lone youth besetby so many enemies, she blanched and sat frozen, bloodless all of asudden. And lest the herbs that she gave him not be efficacious enough,she sings a song to help, and she invokes her occult skills.

Her fear outweighs that of the other spectators; the prefix ex- of extimuit(134) intensifies the degree of her fright beyond that of the Pelasgians.

Medea is again the viewer of the narratives action: utque peti uidit iuue-

nem tot ab hostibus unum(135). Her gaze (uidit) becomes one with the

audiences as she fears for his safety as a lone combatant against so many

enemies (tot ab hostibus unum). The complex narrator-text continues

as the author describes what Medea experiences: palluit et subito sine

sanguine frigida sedit(she blanched and sat frozen, bloodless all of a

sudden, 136). Up to this point, the narratological focalization through

12 Newlands (above, n.4) 185.


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78 Classical World

Medea (in the character-text of 1171 and in the complex narrator-text

of 7688 and 133138) has thoroughly established Medea as a sympa-

thetic figure.When Medea lands with Jason in Thessaly, the site of her rejuvena-

tion of Aeson, the focalization remains largely with her after some inter-

ruptions. In narrator-text, she is depicted as Jasons spolia altera (157),

an appellation by which the model author indicates Jasons materialistic

evaluation of Medeas worth. . . . There is no mention of love here and

Jason will exploit Medeas worth in his subsequent treatment of her.13

However, after a brief interjection of character-text from Jason in which

he asks her to save his aging father (164168), the focalization impor-

tantly returns to Medea. After the model author describes her reactionto Jason in simple narrator-text (nec tenuit lacrimas. mota est pietate

rogantis, Nor did he hold back tears. She is moved by his loyalty as he

pleads, 169), she rebuffs his request (to take away years of life from

him to add them to his father) in emotional character-text: quod . . . /

excidit ore tuo, coniunx, scelus? ergo ego cuiquam / posse tuae uideor

spatium transcribere uitae? (What wickedness has fallen from your

mouth, husband? Do I seem able then to transfer an interval of your life

over to anyone? 172173). A tenderness for Jason underlies her words:she addresses him as coniunx, she rejects his suggestion as scelus, and

she generalizes with the indefinite cuiquam, which may indicate his im-

portance beyond anyone else, let alone his father, to her.14

Focalization through Medea, both in character-text and complex

narrator-text, bleeds through the thematic and geographic boundary be-

tween Colchis and Thessaly at line 159. The narratological shift happens

twenty lines later at line 179, with the end of Medeas character-text to

13 See J. Rosner-Siegel, Amor, Metamorphosis and Magic: Ovids Medea (Met. 7.1424), CJ 77.3 (1982) 237. G. Tissol (The Face of Nature: Wit, Narrative, and CosmicOrigins in Ovids Metamorphoses [Princeton 1997] 14041) paints a similarly unflatter-ing view of Jason with respect to his heroism by examining the way Ovid undercuts theheroic expectations that Apollonius has set up for Jason in book 3 of the Argonautica: In[7.115119], all narrative momentum vanishes, as does any chance of heroic behavior onJasons part. . . . As if to correct Apollonius, Ovid eliminates Jasons one moment of heroicexcellence.

14 I diverge here from Newlands (above, n.4) 186, 187, n.16, who asserts that Me-

deas reply to Jasons request . . . reveals little emotion for her spouse. It is true thatMedea says nothing of amorhere, but while amormay not be explicitly evoked, thediction of Medeas speech, still indicates some sort of misguided love, as Rosner-Siegel(above, n.13) 238 observes. Newlands would argue for the split in Medeas character be-ginning with this speech; I see it as happening after it.


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Jason. There, the focalization shifts forcibly from Medea to the model

author, beginning a section of simple narrator-text that distances Medea

from the audience. Remaining, however, are questions of how and, moreto the point, why.

IV. Model Author as Focalizer: 7.179293

Line 179 marks the beginning of a section of simple narrator-text that

lasts all the way to the end of the Aeson episode proper at 293, save for

the prayer of 192219 (character-text focalized through Medea), which

nevertheless contributes to a portrayal of Medea as self-interested ordistant. I characterize the whole section as simple narrator-text because

of its preponderance and the alignment of the effect of the character-text

with that of the simple narrator-text. Ovids portrayal of this detached

Medea in the context of an episode with a happy ending (the rejuvena-

tion of Aeson) creates distance between Medea and the audience and

provides the next step in Medeas journey towards an archetypal figure

of evil.

From lines 179 to 191, the model author describes Medeas journey

through a quiet world at night; at 188, she begins to prepare for the

ritual of rejuvenating Aeson by purifying herself. The character-text that

follows, the most notable exception to my characterization of this sec-

tion as strictly simple narrator-text, shows Medea invoking such divini-

ties as Nox, the stars, Hecate, and the earth (192198), but she is always

set on the task at hand.15Jason provides the link between this section of

the narrative and the last discussed above, inasmuch as it is his request

that has led Medea to issue the prayer, but here there is no mention of

Jason, let alone of amor16or any motivating force for her endeavor. Shefocuses rather on her own accomplishments and how they must act as

precedent for what she intends to undertake. The egocentrism is com-

pounded by the glut of first-person adjectives and verbs, especially in the

first part of the prayer.17The self-obsession is notable too as she turns

her attention towards Jasons trials:

15

Rosner-Siegel (above, n.13) 239 summarizes and divides the speech into its con-stituent parts.16 See above, n.13 and n.14.17 Coeptis conscia nostris, 194; uolui, 199; sisto, 200; concutio, pello, 201; induco,

abigo, voco, 202; rumpo, 203; moveo, 205; traho, 207; carmine nostro, 208; nostris


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80 Classical World

uos mihi taurorum flammas hebetastis et uncoimpatiens oneris collum pressistis aratro,uos serpentigenis in se fera bella dedistis

custodemque rudem somni sopistis et aurumuindice decepto Graias misistis in urbes.nunc opus est sucis per quos renouata senectusin florem redeat primosque recolligat annos.

(210216)

For me, you have blunted the flames of the bulls, and you have pressedtheir neck[s] beneath the curved plow, a burden that they would notendure; you have incited fierce wars amongst those born of the serpentamong themselves, and you have put to sleep the rough guardian ofsleep and sent his gold into the cities of Greece after its protector wasdeceived. Now I need juices through which old age might return to itsprime refreshed and recollect its youthful years.

The very telling and prominent dative of advantage mihiat 210, set at the

beginning of Medeas recapitulation of Jasons three trials, intensifies the

self-focus of the speech. The compound relative clause of characteristic

at 215216 does not even attribute the youthful years (primos annos)or

the old age that is to return to its prime (senectus/ in florem redeat) asbelonging to Aeson; he and Jason have dropped linguistically out of the

picture. To judge by Medeas own words, it is all about Medea. She does

say a prayer for aid for Aeson and Jason to the appropriate divinities, but

she begins by orienting the attention of those divinities towards herself.

The character-text focalizes through Medea, but the egocentrism differs

markedly from that of 1171 in its insistence on Medeas power and de-

cisiveness rather than her helplessness and indecision. Already here we

get a sense of an evolving (or devolving) Medea, who has taken a step

beyond the lovesick young girl of the first part of the narrative towards

someone more self-assured, powerful, and self-interested.

After this speech, the model author gives the audience almost 75

lines of simple narrator-text with the occasional intrusion of value judg-

ment that takes the narrative to the Liber vignette at 294296. These

subjective intrusions up to 287 are tied specifically to the magic ritual:

for example, herbas . . . placitas partim radice reuellit (in part, she

tears up by the root some grasses that are pleasing, 224226), grasses

pleasing to Medea inasmuch as they will be efficacious for the ritual. At

venenis, 209.


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another point, Medea strictly controls vision and who is allowed to wit-

ness her actions: hinc procul Aesoniden, procul hinc iubet ire ministros /

et monet arcanis oculos remouere profanos(She orders that the son ofAeson go far from here, that the attendants go far from here, and warns

that they move their unholy eyes away from these secrets, 255256).

The chiastic arrangement of hinc procul, procul hincsignposts her im-

portant instruction, but a word of viewing (oculos) is mentioned here

only to signal the viewers exclusion from the rite;profanosindicates the

evaluation of one (Medea) who has undergone the proper purification.18

Only her eyes are allowed to see what will happen; theirs must be kept

away from the rite, outside of the ritual space, asprofanosindicates in

its basic etymology (pro- + fanum, in front of [i.e., outside] the rit-ual space). If Medeas journey takes her from the audiences emotional

sympathy towards alienation, this proves to be a pivotal moment in that

journey. By denying Jason and the attendants access to her ritual in the

midst of this narrator-text, we as the literary audience also lose access

to Medea herself, to her actions and her emotions. At this moment, the

model author draws attention to the widening rift between Medea and

the literary audience with the use of chiasmus and emphatic placement

of key words (for example,profanosin the final position of the line).The exposition of the ritual itself remains simple narrator-text. It

involves motifs such as purification, as noted above, and repetition, ev-

idenced by the triple anaphora of terin 261, which harks back earlier

to the double anaphora of ter at 189.19A catalogue of ingredients for

the potion from 264274 ends with a quasi-comical summation of the

countless remaining ingredients that the model author did not wish to

continue listing: his et mille aliis . . . sine nomine rebus(with these and

a thousand other things without name, 275). Gareth D. Williams wittilypoints out how Ovid, in ceasing to list the ingredients, concedes the con-

test of imagination to Medea. Her quest is one to commit deeds that are

18 Rosner-Siegel (above, n.13) 240 n.27 explains that The request that Jason re-move himself along with the other attendants may be interpreted . . . as another attemptby Medea to protect him; if so, this fact introduces embedded focalization through Medeaof an affective, emotional nature. While the diction does not directly support it, such aninterpretation could help tie Medea the witch thematically back to Medea the young girl

and negate Newlands assertion (above, n.14) that the emotionally detached witch sanshuman affection appears as early as her response to Jason. However, Rosner-Siegel alsooffers the simplest explanation, that this is again in accord with proper ritual procedurewhich requires that the witch perform her rite in solitude.

19 See Segal (above, n.2) 20.


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ever maius, as she declares in the final line of Heroides12 (nescioquid

certe mens mea maius agit); indeed, her collection of ingredients proves

greater than Ovids ability (or patience) to enumerate them.

20

The re-juvenated stirring stick indicates that the potion is ready, so Medea per-

forms the ritual (285292): she slits Aesons throat, the horror of which

act the model author exploits in the gory indecision of portraying the po-

tion taken either through the mouth or through the gash [in his neck]

(aut ore acceptos aut uulnere,288). Importantly, the final focalization

of the Aeson episode is through Aeson himself: miratur et olim / ante

quater denos hunc se reminiscitur annos (he marvels and recalls that he

was once a man like this, some forty years ago, 292293).

This overall focalization through the model author and self-obsessionin the character-text of Medea unifies 179293 into an account of a pow-

erful enchantress at work. The purposely detached tone differs markedly

from the affect-laden character-text and complex narrator-text of the first

part of the narrative, but the final focalization here reminds the audience

that this story, at least, has a happy ending. That happy ending encourages

the audience to look backward towards the girl who helped Jason in his

trials and Aeson in his old age. The violence of the slitting of Aesons

throat, the sterile tone, and other linguistic markers, however, simulta-neously encourage the audience to look forward to the horrors to come;

hinc procul, procul hinc(255) marks this magical rite as a place of origin

to which Medea, once she has gone far enough away, can never return.

V. Liber as Focalizer: 7.294296

The bridge between the Aeson and Pelias episodes is the three-line com-

plex narrator-text focalized through the god Liber at 294296:21

20 G. D. Williams, Medea in Metamorphoses 7: Magic, Moreness, and the MaiusOpus, Ramus41.1 (2012): 56.

21 Liber in fact made an earlier appearance in the Medea narrative within the expo-sition of the magic ritual:passis Medea capillis / bacchantum ritu flagrantis circuit aras(Medea, hair undone, circled the burning altars in the ritual fashion of Bacchantes,258).Bmer (above, n.1) 270 notes that the act of circling was not itself part of the Bacchic cultbut rather characterizes Medea as a bacchante.Anderson (above, n.1) 272 similarly states

that Ovid compares her to Bacchantes, women who epitomize wildness, not only by theirloosened locks (cf. 3.726 and 4.6), but also by their swift and passionate movements.This reference looks both backwards and forwards in Medeas biography, backward to thePentheusesque dismemberment of her brother Apsyrtus (A.R. 4.42181) and forward tothis Liber vignette and, transitively, to the gruesome murder of Pelias.


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uiderat ex alto tanti miracula monstriLiber et admonitus iuuenes nutricibus annosposse suis reddi capit hoc a Colchide munus.

(294296)

He had seen from on high the marvels of so great a portent, the godLiber, and reminded that youthful years could be restored to his ownnurses, he takes this gift from the Colchian woman.

This transition has received little serious attention in scholarship. An-

derson calls it the intrusion of an unimportant metamorphosis designed

to articulate the two portions of a long drama.22Along similar lines,

Segal calls it a brief and amusing digression.23Bmer explores its pos-sible roots in a lost satyr-play of Aeschylus.24Judith Rosner-Siegel and

Christine Binroth-Bank both highlight the magnitude of the preceding

rejuvenation by means of the mortal-divine divide described in these

three lines.25 I argue, however, that the deliberate placement of, and

focalization through, Liber is an important signpost. The abrupt nar-

ratological shift to Libers point of view (uiderat ex alto, 294, lacking

any conjunctions or particles to aid the transition from Aeson) draws

attention to Liber as an analogue for Medea, both in action and in char-acter attributes, and this assimilation helps the audience prepare for the

murder to come.

The placement and specific evocation of Bacchus as Liber cannot

be as unimportant or monolithically backward-looking as critics have

concluded. Up to book 7, Bacchus is mentioned by name or unmistak-

able periphrasis eighteen times during several important appearances

in the Metamorphoses.26To take one example, in book 6, Bacchus and

his rites were evoked as a pretense for Procnes rescue of Philomela

22 Anderson (above, n.1) 275.23 Segal (above, n.2) 15.24 Bmer (above, n.1) 277.25 Rosner-Siegel (above, n.13) 240 observes that To add to the spectacular nature

of this achievement, Bacchus witnesses the act and asks Medea to perform the same for hisnurses . . . The now barbarous Medea has achieved something not only more than mortal. . . but more, too, than what a god can do. Similarly, C. Binroth-Bank (Medea in den

Metamorphosen Ovids: Untersuchungen zur ovidischen Erzhl- und Darstellungsweise[Frankfurt 1994] 123) notes that Medeas accomplishment is so great that even a godconsiders it tanti miracula monstri.

26 Ov. Met.3.317, 421, 572, 573, 629, 630; 4.2, 11, 273, 416, 523 (twice), 605,765; 5.329; 6.587, 596, 598.


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(6.587600).27His appearance in the Philomela episode is in a liminal

position, after Tereus violation of Philomela but before the murder of

Itys; Bacchus appearance in the Medea episode occurs in a similarlyliminal position, after the violation of Aeson but before the murder of

Pelias. Again, Aesons tale, unlike Itys, comes to a happy ending, but

this god in past episodes of the Metamorphoses has caused, for example,

the dismemberment of Pentheus in book 3. In these episodes, Bacchus

constitutes a dark presence in the text whose presence often anticipates

a pathetic and downright gory end to an episode, and indeed, Medeas

next episode will see her cause the utter destruction of Pelias.

Outside those eighteen instances, the god appears explicitly as Liber

on five occasions.28One instance is particularly notable: 3.636, in the con-text of Acoetes story about his crew finding Bacchus and intending to

sell him as a slave. Acoetes description of Bacchus highlights his extreme

youth: .. . sociorum primus Opheltes, / utque putat, praedam deserto nac-

tus in agro / uirginea puerum ducit per litora forma( . . . Opheltes, the

foremost of my allies, gained possession of what he thought was a prize

in a deserted field and led the boy of virginal beauty along the shores,

3.605607). Bacchus is a child, making his appellation Liber at 3.636

particularly appropriate in this instance. Indeed, because of the identicalvowel quantities in Liber and liber (child), the only key to the translation

of the word is the editors decision on whether or not to capitalize the term

(either ait Liber, Liber says, or ait liber, the child says). The gods later

appearance as Liber in the passage under discussion (7.294296) then

seems also to invite the witty punning on Liber and liberi, the children

who will play such an integral role in the episode to follow, the murder of

Pelias at the hands of his own daughters and Medea.

Furthermore, if one reads the Liber episode as anticipatory (inas-much as it signals what will happen in the Medea episodes to follow)

rather than as retrospective, the particular evocation of Bacchus as Liber

27 The rites of Bacchus are described as trieterica (6.587), a recurrence of the motifof repetition. Additionally, both Newlands (above, n.4) 19295 and D. Larmour (TragicContaminatio in Ovids Metamorphoses: Procne and Medea; Philomela and Iphigenia(6.424674); Scylla and Phaedra (8.19151), ICS 15 [1990] 132134) investigate the

thematic ties between the two episodes.28 Ov. Met.3.520, 528 (Pentheus rejecting Bacchus); 3.636 (Acoetes crew intendingto sell the young Bacchus); 4.17 (the beginning of Bacchus festival; the name is plantedamongst numerous appellations for Bacchus); 6.125 (Bacchus deceiving Erigone with falsegrapes on Ariadnes tapestry).


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invites a punning association with the license that Medea will exhibit in

her interactions with the Peliades, Pelias, Aegeus, and Theseus, and the

freedom of her airborne voyage around the Aegean. That freedom ex-tends to her portrayal as a fugitive from punishment: non exempta foret

poenas; fugit alta superque (She would not have escaped punishment;

she flees on high and above, 351); Iasonis effugit arma (She escapes

the arms of Jason, 397); effugit illa necem nebulis per carmina motis

(She escapes death after moving the clouds away through her songs,

424). Personified Liber appears again at 360 in an Alexandrian-style

reference to an otherwise unknown story wherein Libers son steals a

calf, which Liber transforms into a stag so as to preclude punishment.

The slitting of Aesons throat and the presence of Liber act as dou-ble monitory signposts to the audience, especially when coupled with

the newly unemotional bent of Medea; however happily Aesons episode

may have ended, they both suggest that the audience is about to witness

something horrible and brutal, without a happy ending. Medeas gift is

indeed divine, perhaps super-divine, as Rosner-Siegel and Binroth-Bank

have noted,29and beneficial to Libers nurses, aspects that point back-

ward toward the divine and beneficial actions that Medea performed for

Jason and Aeson. However, the Liber vignette, in addition to wrappingup neatly Medeas divine exercise of power over life with Aeson, simul-

taneously points forward to her divine exercise of power over death with

Pelias. This external tier of complex narrator-text informs the audience

that something gruesomely Bacchic is about to happen, and indeed the

narrative shifts next to the murder of Pelias.

VI. A New Kind of Medea: 7.297349, 350424

Medea completes her journey towards mythological abstraction in the

fourth and fifth sections of book 7s narrative. In the first section (7178),

character-text and complex narrator-text were focalized through Medea

to create a sense of sympathy with a young girl in love that upended the

audiences expectations of the Medeas of Euripides tragedy, Apollonius

epic, and possibly Ovids tragedy. The second section (179293) utilized

mainly simple narrator-text with some character-text to distance Medea

somewhat from that first characterization by attributing to her a new

29 Boner (above, n.1) 277.


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sense of self-assuredness and power. The third section (294296) pro-

vided an abrupt narratological cutaway to the divine sphere to bridge the

slightly detached Medea of the second section with the murderous, trickyMedea of the fourth (297349) and fifth (350424) sections. In these

last two, Medea no longer focalizes at all; because of the preponderance

of straight narrator-text and complex narrator-text through other enti-

ties, we have completely lost access to Medeas emotions and intentions.

The Pelias episode of the fourth section begins with a frustratingly

curt introduction: neue doli cessent(lest trickery be lacking, 297). In

the absence of any markers of viewpoint, we cannot say that this is com-

plex narrator-text, but the definition of dolus implies both an actor fully

cognizant of the deceptive nature of his or her actions and a recipient(or recipients) of those actions who cannot see past the deception. The

denotation of dolus, then, allows some capacity for inferring the presence

of a subjective viewpoint. As such, if neue doli cessent comes from any

particular entitys viewpoint, it must be that of either the model author or

Medea (since it cannot be the Peliades, who will be the ones tricked). The

audience does not receive a subject of the main clause until the beginning

of the next line (Phasias, 298), but the doliof 297 remain without any

attribution. It seems most accurate to construe neue doli cessentas simplenarrator-text. The model author in his omniscience knows that Medea is

about to effect a dolus; the Peliades surely do not. The phrase surely here

also acknowledges the audiences knowledge of the intertextual baggage

with which Medea comes; they have come to expect a Medea who effects

doli (the infanticide of Euripides Medea, the fratricide and other crimes

of ApolloniusArgonautica), so the model author will give them what they

expect; the portrait of Medea that the model author depicts cannot be en-

tirely sympathetic or without trickery. The dramatic irony becomes evenmore apparent in a string of similarly problematic subjective evaluations

presented by the model author, all centered around falsehood: odium . . .

falsum(297), amicitiae mendacis (301),ficta gravitate(308). The ritu-

alistic ter that begins the rejuvenation of Pelias at 324, a word which

may lead the audience to expect a rite along the lines of Aesons rejuve-

nation, is almost immediately undercut by yet another evaluation,fallax

(326), as Medea prepares the boiling waters and grasses without power

(sine uiribus herbas, 327) for Pelias. The distance between Medea and the

audience, one created by the focalization through the narrator, is already

pronounced, even before the audience sees the full effect of Medeas new-

found powers in her murder of Pelias.


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In the space of one line, from 296 to 297, Medea has gone from the

rejuvenator of life to the author of doli. The full extent of her ability is

actualized in Aesons rejuvenation, a power that even a god wanted toappropriate for himself, but perhaps that monumental power over life

and death proved too attractive an ability not to manipulate. As Segal

notes, Magic becomes increasingly an expression of the dangers of this

predominantly female mode of exercising power over life and death.30

Does Medeas first successful exercise of that power over life make inev-

itable the exercise of her power over death? The corrupting force of such

power seems to account for this jarring transition: the good girl with too

much power must end up as a bad and vengeful sorceress.

The episode does contain flashes of complex narrator-text andcharacter-text, but through the Peliades and Pelias himself respectively.

The focalization through the Peliades highlights their marvel at the re-

juvenated lamb (mirantibus, 320; obstipuere satae Pelia, 322) and their

consideration of not acting on Medeas commands as disloyal and wicked

(impia, 339; ne sit scelerata, facit scelus, 340). The focalization through

Pelias happens through a brief and horrifying character-text as they hack

him apart: quid facitis, natae? quis uos in fata parentis / armat(What

are you doing, daughters? Who arms you for the destruction of yourfather? 346347); however, before he can say more (plura locuturo,

348), Medea slits his throat and plunges him into the water. Despite

these intrusions, for the most part, the model author through narra-

tor-text remains the dominant focalizing force throughout the episode.

The lack of affective focalization in the latter part of the Aeson epi-

sode, as previously argued, helps Medea focus on the task at hand to ac-

complish Jasons request; yet it simultaneously distances Medea from the

audience, since we lose some of the insight into Medeas thought pro-cesses and emotions that the character-text and complex narrator-text of

lines 7178 afforded us. Here, there is a similar lack of affect inasmuch

as neither the model author nor Medea herself gives any indication of

pleasure or satisfaction derived from the murder. It is sadistic, to be

sure, but the horrifying aspect comes from the act itself, not from any

explication or focalization of it as such.

That lack of emotional resonance continues into the fifth section, the

catalogue of Medeas journey after the murder (350403), a rapid-fire

30 Segal (above, n.2) 14.


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list of fifteen places enumerated in straight narrator-text that each can be

linked to a metamorphosis. Anderson asserts that in this section, we are

not interested in Medea as a dramatic character at all. She merely servesas a vehicle for the amusing display of Ovids erudition.31Nevertheless,

certain episodes have direct bearing on, or deliberately parallel, the Medea

narrative, including the aetion of Cycnus as a swan (37181). One lover

requests that the other perform tasks of exceeding difficulty, which the

other will perform out of love. One request includes the domination of a

bull. The swans connections with death and musicality or poetry are at-

tested as early as AeschylusAgamemnon32and Platos Phaedo;33as such,

the inclusion of a swan aetion is appropriate in the context of the narrative

of a murderous witch who sings enchantments and prayers.The narrator-text remains even into the throwaway four-line com-

pression of the Euripidean Medea (394397). That Ovid spends little

time on a topic treated thoroughly by a predecessor and instead focuses

on more obscure aspects of the myth in question is indisputable and

unsurprising,34perhaps more unsurprising at this point in the narrative

after Ovid has given such prominence to the Jason, Aeson, and Pelias

episodes. Medeas viewpoint is increasingly elided until her final epi-

sode in the Metamorphoses, a twenty-line description of the reunion ofTheseus and Aegeus (404424). Focalization through Medea, whether

character-text or complex narrator-text, is gone; instead, the episode is

taken up mostly by an eleven-line aetiology of aconite (408419).

VII. Conclusion

This narratological investigation opens up many questions and avenues

of inquiry. How does this structure help inform genre? How does focal-ization key into other episodes within the Metamorphoses? Perhaps most

pressingly, what is the effect of the authors narratological technique on

the audience, especially within this episode? The girl with whom the

31 Anderson (above, n.1) 281.32 A. Ag.144446: , /

/ . . . (Thus he lies, and she, like a swan, sang herfinal deathly lament and lies there, his lover . . .).

33 Pl. Phd.84e85b.34 The most notable examples include Ovids focus on the transformation of Acoetes

ship and crew rather than the Bacchae-relevant elements of the Bacchus myth in book 3and the Little Iliad of books 12 and 13.


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audiences sympathy aligned so powerfully at the beginning of the story

is the same figure who becomes abstracted and commits brutal acts of

murder. Thematically, that sympathy must remain intact until Medeamurders Pelias, but I have argued that narratologically, by means of the

gradual distance created by both simple and complex narrator-text, the

audiences sympathy has already been alienated by the time Medea be-

gins the process of rejuvenating Aeson. The shock of the thematic shift

has been softened by the narratological distancing.

True enough, Medea comes to Metamorphoses 7 with enough lit-

erary baggage that the audience cannot but think of Medea as child- or

brother-killer. The key to the difference in Ovids version of the myth lies

in the way that he uses different voices and points of view to create hisstory while altering or eschewing established mythological details (such

as the divine provenance of Medeas love for Jason). The prominence

of sympathetic focalization in the first section of the narrative sweeps

the audiences expectations of a Euripidean or Apollonian Medea aside;

the lack of it in the second through fifth sections brings them back and

fulfills them. Ovid creates his account of Medea in such a way as to chal-

lenge and validate the audiences expectations simultaneously.

Medea embarks on a journey from a fully fleshed out, young, tragiccharacter, subject to the vicissitudes of amorand devoted to Jason, to-

wards the archetypal wicked sorceress. She progresses step by step until

all that remains is a mythological abstraction. Ovid marks the stages of

this movement through shifting focalizations. First, he allows the audi-

ence insight into Medeas inner state through character-text and com-

plex narrator-text and thereby creates a sympathetic connection between

Medea and the audience. Next, he distances Medea from the audience

by shifting the focalization to the model author. Then the shift to Liberas focalizer simultaneously ends the Aeson episode on a happy note and

presages the Pelias episode by means of the brutality associated with,

and linguistic parallels evoked by, Liber. Finally, the narrative settles

into focalizations that deny the audience access to Medeas thoughts and

emotions, focalizations that take her as emotionally far away from the

audience as she can be taken. She will and can never be the young girl

again; her narratological journey and Ovids shifting narrative voices

have taken her past a point of no return.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

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A Narratological Investigation of Ovid's Medea: Met. 7.1-424

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